


Eun-ha

by crackleviolet



Series: Violets are Blue [15]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:10:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackleviolet/pseuds/crackleviolet
Summary: Jumin meets his daughter for the very first time and knows that his world will never be the same.(I swear it's a coincidence that I'm posting this on Father's Day)





	Eun-ha

**_This fic is inspired[a lot by this phone call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dvJYAv4lA)_ **

* * *

 

Jumin is level headed to a fault. As a young boy, he rarely cried and instead would introduce himself to every new nanny and teacher with a firm handshake. At the onset of every stomach ache or grazed knee, he described the issue to whichever adult would listen, all while eliminating the possibility of appendicitis and pointing out the importance of a clean gauze.

On this occasion, however, he cannot draw his attentions from the fact that his jacket is disheveled. He forgot to button it as he left the office and as he shoves open the nearest door, it is starting to fall from his shoulders. As he rushes through the hospital passageway, his legs in slow motion even if they are going as quickly as they are able, his thoughts linger only on the buttons he did not think to rearrange.

He had plenty of time and in retrospect, that much is obvious to him. He wasted an entire journey sending messages to Jihyun and leaving messages on his voicemail, glaring through the car windows and demanding to know why there was so much traffic at that particular hour of the day.

He might have fixed his jacket at any one of those points, but just as he never particularly paid attention to any of Driver Kim’s answers, nor did he call for a helicopter when that was clearly the better option, he does not consider fixing his jacket until after he has already received his wife’s room number.

He knows that Nari will not pay much mind to whether or not his jacket is askew. She will be happy to see him and perhaps even laugh. That is the favourable option, at least and he does not wish to consider the other, with which he is far better acquainted. He has been through that same hospital hallway before, years ago and the thought alone leaves him unable to think of anything but the smell of blood and cleaning fluid; of hands on his shoulder that he slapped away; of pitying glances and white sheets. He can barely make out the numbers on any of the doors and even if it mattered, which he knows it doesn’t, his fingers tremble so much that he cannot fix his clothes even if he wanted to.

He shoves a grand total of three doctors out of the way before realising he has forgotten the room number and instinctively marched in the direction of the one from years past. Were it not for Jihyun sobbing outside of a particular room set apart from the others, he might never have found it at all.

 “Jumin,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry. You-”

But he does not wait to hear him out. He does not straighten his jacket or open the door in any sort of careful fashion. Instead he storms inside, ready to demand information of the doctors. He prepares himself for a scene much like that of years before. Of Nari unconscious and gravely ill; ghostly white and connected to several machines.

He is not prepared for what actually greets him.

“Hello Jumin.”

She is pale; her voice little more than a whisper and bags under her eyes. Her hair is braided and badly and even though her smile is enthusiastic, that doesn’t change the fact that it is weak. She lays on her side, fingers intertwined with those of the infant swaddled in blankets on the pillow beside her; an infant with wisps of dark hair who reaches out for her face.

He has prepared for this moment. He filled every empty space in his schedule with parenting classes and filled his home office with any book that he could find. For all of his preparation, however, he finds himself rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend the reality before him.

Of all things, he finds himself thinking back to the evening before Nari’s first RFA party. She called him then to admit without even the slightest reservation that she missed him, as if worried that he might question the sincerity of her feelings in her absence. And in that moment, he understood perfectly that she had become such a pivotal feature in his life that it would seem strange without her in it. She meant nothing to him before and changed everything and it is a sentiment he recalls only too well as he lifts his daughter into his arms. He never knew she would be a part of his life either, but now that she is there is no limit to his love for her. He counts each one of her fingers and takes a moment to examine the shape of her fingernails and all of the while her eyes are as wide and curious and grey as he imagines his own must be.

She does not protest his arms, even despite the situation with his jacket and the fact that their tutor so often reminded him that his posture was too stiff. He was prepared for every possible outcome. For something terrible happening to Nari; for multiple different medical emergencies; for any number of hereditary diseases. He went so far as to look at nursery schools, but did not leave room for actually meeting a living breathing newborn.

 “What do you think?” Nari whispers and he realises he’s been quiet for a long time.

In truth he is not sure how to explain everything. Now that his daughter is in his arms, he knows his plans are wasted. Every doctor he chose; every school he looked into; they are all unworthy. He finds himself recalling loud noises and wide open spaces; the white noise that defined his existence before he heard Nari speak. Nari’s voice reaches into the corners of his heart like afternoon sunlight through an attic window and at some point he began to cling to it in exactly the same fashion that the infant clings to his finger.

Her grip is strong, as is her grip on his heart and all at once he wants to push her into the arms of every stranger and demand their attention, while also wanting absolutely no one else to touch her. He is increasingly aware of how small she is and how fragile, while simultaneously the most powerful thing he has ever held in his arms.

If Nari is soft afternoon sunlight, his daughter leaves time standing still.

“I hope,” he says, with a kiss to Nari’s forehead, “that she knows what a blessing she is.”

Nari does not say a word of his disheveled appearance, nor the tears in his eyes and for that alone he is grateful. Instead she watches them, exhausted and aching, but altogether content.

“One day,” she says, “perhaps.”


End file.
